Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 60, Issue 7, 1 October 2006, Pages 677-683
Biological Psychiatry

Original article
Childhood Maltreatment, Subsequent Antisocial Behavior, and the Role of Monoamine Oxidase A Genotype

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.12.022Get rights and content

Background

A functional promoter polymorphism in monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) has been implicated as a moderating factor in the relationship between childhood maltreatment and later adolescent and adult antisocial behavior. Despite wide interest in this hypothesis, results remain mixed from the few attempts at replication.

Methods

Regression-based analyses were conducted to test for a genotype-environment interaction using self-reported physical abuse and MAOA genotype to predict later antisocial behavior and arrests for violence by participants in the National Youth Survey Family Study. We also examined the interaction using a measure of violent victimization. The analysis sample included 277 Caucasian male respondents, aged 11–15 in 1976, who provided buccal swab DNA samples and who were successfully genotyped for the variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) in the MAOA promoter using polymerase chain reaction.

Results

Maltreatment by a parent during adolescence was a risk factor for adolescent and adult antisocial and violence related behavioral problems. Tests for the main effect of MAOA and a MAOA-maltreatment interaction were nonsignificant. Similar results were obtained using the measure of adolescent violent victimization.

Conclusions

Findings from this general population sample could not confirm the hypothesis that MAOA moderates the relationship between adolescent maltreatment and adolescent or adult antisocial behavior.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were individuals in the National Youth Survey Family Study (Institute of Behavioral Science and Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado), a prospective longitudinal study of problem behavior from adolescence into adulthood. The National Youth Survey Family Study (NYSFS) is based on a national representative multi-stage probability sample of households in the continental United States (Elliott et al 1989). The original respondents include 1725

Results

Genotypic frequencies for those hemizygous 321 and 351 groups were 37% and 63%, respectively, within the entire NYSFS male sample. Within our study sample of Caucasian males, they were 35% and 65%, respectively. Genotypic distributions for both male samples were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and not significantly different. These allelic and genotypic frequencies are similar to those reported elsewhere (Caspi et al 2002, Sabol et al 1998).

In the analysis sample of 277 youths, a total of 26 (9%)

Discussion

We examined the hypothesis that specific variation in MAOA genotype moderates the relationship between exposure to adolescent maltreatment and later antisocial behavior. We also extended the analyses of Caspi et al (2002) by examining the broader behavioral construct of violent victimization during adolescence. Similar to Caspi et al (2002), the current study included Caucasian males from a general population sample that had been followed longitudinally. Many of the behaviors examined here had

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